Isaac Albéniz - Complete Songs (Adriana González; Iñaki Encina Oyón)

Information

Composer: Isaac Albéniz

• Rimas de Bécquer
• Seis baladas
• To Nellie
• Songs
• Il en est de l'amour …
• Deux morceaux de prose
• Quatre Mélodies

Adriana González, soprano

Iñaki Encina Oyón, piano

Date: 2021

Label: Audax

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Review

Momentousness seems prevalent at every turn: the perceptive, passionate notes, the lavish, 112-page booklet and the general dignity of the performances all insist that one is discovering music of great import, more than a century after it was written. But that’s a limited view of these 30 songs, which combine the most welcome elements of the street, the parlour and, in later works, a harmonic world that belonged only to Albéniz.

The songs are arranged in chronological order, the earlier ones written in a typical late 19th-century middle-weight idiom. The shift comes in 1896, when the expected vocal gestures take left turns in the service of texts that are often in English, by the composer’s British patron Francis Money-Coutts, and set by the composer in ways that are highly attentive to the content. I’m not yet convinced that the Quatre Mélodies Albéniz wrote at the end of his life have the stature pianist Iñaki Encina Oyón describes in his booklet notes but they come from a private, serene place with rich harmonies that I want to visit repeatedly.

The recording itself is neither the first nor the last word on this repertoire. Adriana González (the Guatemalan soprano who placed first at Operalia 2019) is at home in the composer’s earlier non-English songs, shading her lush voice with highly personal insights, pianist Oyón framing her with the flexibility of a master accompanist. Not so in the English-language songs. Though González’s enunciation is good, she doesn’t fully embody the content. Phrases aren’t moulded with any strong point of view, usually with her and Oyón falling back on all-purpose stateliness. In contrast, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Llamas on Naxos’s 2019 complete Albéniz songs, for all of her vocal rough patches, sings English with the highly inflected sensibility of Spanish to a degree essential to projecting the innate vitality of Albéniz’s songs. The Naxos set also includes the unfinished ‘Laugh at loving’, not on Audax, which is worth hearing if only for the cascading piano-writing. So those with Albéniz-itis will need both discs until the likes of Joyce DiDonato fall in love with and record these lovable works.

— David Patrick Stearns

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Isaac Albéniz (29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was a Spanish composer and virtuoso pianist. A prodigy who performed from age four, he studied in Leipzig and Brussels before teaching in Barcelona and Madrid. Initially known for light salon music, Albéniz began serious composition around 1890 under the guidance of Felipe Pedrell. He later settled in Paris where he was influenced by French composers such as Dukas and d'Indy. His works vividly capture the spirit of Spain through folk-inspired melodies and rhythms, with his masterpiece Iberia (1905–09) hailed as one of the greatest piano compositions ever written.

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Adriana González (born 1991) is a Guatemalan soprano. She began vocal studies in 2008 with Barbara Bickford and later earned degrees from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. Discovered in 2012 by conductor Iñaki Encina Oyón, she later joined Atelier Lyrique, performed roles like Zerlina and Despina, and won the 2017 Prix Lyrique du Cercle Carpeaux. From 2017/2018, she joined the Zurich Opera's International Opera Studio, performing leading roles in major European and American opera houses. Her 2020 debut recording, featuring works by Dussaut and Covatti, won a German Record Critics' Award.

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Iñaki Encina Oyón (born 1978 in Eskoriatza) is a Spanish conductor and pianist. Trained in piano at the Toulouse Conservatoire and conducting at Musikene, he became the first Spaniard to join the Paris Opera's Atelier Lyrique in 2005. He made his conducting debut at the Palais Garnier in 2011, and has worked with major opera houses across Europe, Japan and Argentina. Renowned for reviving lesser-known repertoire, he has led works by Weber, Mascagni, Menotti, Barber and Salieri. Since 2016, he has directed the International Baroque Academy of the Festival du Périgord Noir and remains active as a recital pianist.

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